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rested by eminent jurists upon the duty of the sovereign to protect his citizens and subjects and their property against warlike or violent acts of the enemy. Vattel's Law of Nations, lib. 3, c. 14, § 204; Halleck's International Law, c. 35, S$ 1, 2. He is under no such obligation to protect them against unwise bargains, or against sales made for inadequate consideration, or by an agent or custodian in excess of his real authority. The jus postliminii attaches to property taken by the enemy with the strong hand against the will of its owner or custodian, and not to property obtained by the enemy by negotiation or purchase.

The act of 1800 is entitled "An act providing for salvage in cases of recapture," and applies only to recaptures from an enemy. In order to come within its purpose, and its very words, the property in question must "have been taken by an enemy of the United States," and "retaken" by a public or private vessel of the United States. Where there has been no capture, there can be no recapture. That enactment has been substantially embodied in later statutes. Act of June 30, 1864, c. 174, § 29; 13 Stat. 314; Rev. Stat. § 4652. The similar provision of the English Prize Acts was held by Sir William Scott to be inapplicable to a British ship captured from the French during a war between the two countries which before the war had been seized, condemned and sold under the revenue laws of France, although the French seizure was alleged to have been violent and unjust. The Jeune Voyageur, 5 C. Rob. 1. Neither the English statutes nor our own have ever been held to apply to property which had come into the enemy's possession, by purchase or otherwise, with the consent of the owner or of his agent.

In the present case, the only facts found by the Court of Claims (other than may be ascertained from the papers in the Confederate Archives Office) which can be supposed to have any bearing on the question whether the Eastport came into the possession of the Confederate forces by capture, or by purchase, are these: Before and throughout the war of the rebellion, Worthington, being the owner of three fifths of the Eastport, was a citizen and resident of Illinois, was loyal to

Opinion of the Court.

the United States, and gave no aid or comfort to the rebellion, and neither knew of, nor consented to, the Eastport being taken by her captain, Wood, within the lines of the Confederate forces. This precludes any inference that Worthington himself participated in, or consented to, a transfer of the Eastport to the Confederate authorities; but it does not negative the supposition that she was sold to those authorities by Wood, or by the owners of the other two fifths of her. That Wood's possession and control of her was by Worthington's authority and consent is evident from the facts that Worthington owned more than one half of her, and that she was being extensively repaired, under the orders of both Wood and Worthington, shortly before Wood took her within the Confederate lines. At that time she was an unarmed vessel, and fit for commercial purposes only.

It is stated in the finding of facts that it did not appear what disposition Wood made of the Eastport, nor whether he was paid purchase money for her, nor whether he ever accounted for such money to the other owners, nor whether they had received any part of it, nor whether she came into the possession of the Confederate forces by capture, or by purchase from Wood.

If the matter rested here, there would be nothing to warrant the court in concluding that the Eastport came into the possession of the Confederate forces by capture or other forcible appropriation. But it does not rest here.

Upon the question whether the so-called Confederate States acquired possession of the Eastport by capture or by purchase, the extracts from the Confederate archives, made part of the facts found by the Court of Claims, appear to this court to have an important bearing, and to be competent, though not conclusive, evidence.

The government of the Confederate States, although in no sense a government de jure, and never recognized by the United States as in all respects a government de facto, yet was an organized and actual government, maintained by military power, throughout the limits of the States that adhered to it, except in those portions of them protected

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from its control by the presence of the armed forces of the United States; and the United States, from motives of humanity and expediency, had conceded to that government some of the rights and obligations of a belligerent. Prize cases, 2 Black, 635, 673, 674; Thorington v. Smith, 8 Wall. 1, 7, 9, 10; Ford v. Surget, 97 U. S. 594, 604, 605; The Lilla, 2 Sprague, 177, and 2 Clifford, 169.

No better evidence of the doings of that organization assuming to act as a government can be found than in papers contemporaneously drawn up by its officers in the performance of their supposed duties to that government.

For the collection and preservation of such papers, a bureau, office or division in the War Department (now known as the Confederate Archives Office) was created by the Executive authority of the United States soon after the close of the war of the rebellion, and has been maintained ever since, and has been recognized by many acts of Congress.

For instance, Congress, beginning in 1872, has made frequent appropriations "to enable the Secretary of War to have the rebel archives examined and copies furnished from time to time for the use of the Government." Acts of May 8, 1872, c. 140, and March 3, 1873, c. 226; 17 Stat. 79, 500; August 15, 1876, c. 287; March 3, 1877, c. 102; 19 Stat. 160, 310; June 19, 1878, c. 329; 20 Stat. 195; June 21, 1879, c. 34; June 15, 1880, c. 225; March 3, 1881, c. 130; 21 Stat. 23, 226, 402. And the appropriations for the War Department in 1882 included one "for travelling expenses in connection with the collection of Confederate records placed by gift or loan at the disposal of the Government." Act of August 5, 1882,

c. 389; 22 Stat. 241. Congress has also occasionally made appropriations "to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to have the rebel archives and records of captured property examined, and information furnished therefrom for the use of the Government." Acts of March 3, 1875, c. 130; 18 Stat. 376; March 3, 1879, c. 182; 20 Stat. 384; June 16, 1880, c. 235; 21 Stat. 266. It has once, at least, made an appropriation "for collecting, compiling and arranging the naval records of the war of the rebellion, including Confederate

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naval records." Act of July 7, 1884, c. 331; 23 Stat. 185. And it has made appropriations "for the preparation of a general card index of the books, muster rolls, orders and other official papers preserved in the Confederate Archives Office." Acts of May 13, 1892, c. 72, and March 3, 1893, c. 208; 27 Stat. 36, 600.

It would be an anomalous condition of things if records of this kind, collected and preserved by the Government of the United States in a public office at great expense, were wholly inadmissible in a court of justice to show facts of which they afford the most distinct and appropriate evidence, and which, in the nature of things, can hardly be satisfactorily proved in any other manner.

The act of March 3, 1871, c. 116, § 2, provided for the appointment of a board of commissioners, "to receive, examine and consider the justice and validity of such claims as shall be brought before them, of those citizens who remained loyal adherents to the cause and the Government of the United States during the war, for stores or sup plies taken or furnished during the rebellion for the use of the Army of the United States in States proclaimed as in insurrection against the United States, including the use and loss of vessels or boats while employed in the military service of the United States." 16 Stat. 524. By the act of April 20, 1871, c. 21, § 1, it was enacted that "all books, records, papers and documents relative to transactions of or with the late so-called government of the Confederate States, or the government of any State lately in insurrection, now in the possession, or which may at any time come into the possession, of the Government of the United States, or of any department thereof, may be resorted to for information by the board of commissioners of claims created by act approved March 3, 1871; and copies thereof, duly certified by the officer having custody of the same, shall be treated with like force and effect as the original." 17 Stat. 6. The latter act thus not only allowed a particular board of commissioners, appointed to pass upon certain claims against the United States for property taken for the use of the Army during the war of the rebellion,

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to have access to such archives for information as to transactions of or with the so-called government of the Confederate States; but it declared the records and papers in such archives, or duly certified copies thereof, to be competent evidence of such transactions.

Section 882 of the Revised Statutes, also, reënacting earlier acts of Congress, provides that "copies of any books, records, papers or documents in any of the Executive Departments, authenticated under the seals of such Departments respectively, shall be admitted in evidence equally with the originals thereof." And, by section 1076, the Court of Claims has power to call upon any of the Departments for any information or papers it may deem necessary;" "but the head of any Department may refuse and omit to comply with any call for information or papers, when, in his opinion, such compliance would be injurious to the public interest."

The certificate of the officer of the United States in charge of the Confederate Archives Office, embodied in the findings of fact, would appear to have been furnished upon a call from the Court of Claims; and it is not open, at this stage of the case, to objection for not being under the seal of the War Department, since that court has found that the papers in that office show the facts stated in that certificate. Those facts consist of official communications, between high civil and military officers of the Confederate States, including a dispatch from one of their generals in Kentucky, October 31, 1861, to the secretary of the navy, that the price of the Eastport was $12,000; a reply of the secretary of war of the same date, giving authority to the general to buy her if thought worth that sum; a letter of January 5, 1862, from the general to the secretary of war, informing him that, by virtue of that authority, he had bought her, and she was being converted into a gunboat; a letter of January 16, 1862, from the secretary of war to the general, saying that he would at once order to be forwarded the necessary funds for the Eastport; and a statement of disbursements, dated February 2, 1863, by the general to the secretary of war, in which one item was a sum of $9688.92, "expended in purchase of Steamer Eastport,"